The best dishes I had in 2016

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I've never had the urge to follow in the footsteps of others to do these year-end "best of" lists, neither for restaurants, meals, nor dishes.  Heck, I haven't even done a "top 10" list of my favorite restaurants since the middle of 2009.  But as 2016 drew to a close, and similar lists from friends and others started popping up, I started to wonder what a "best dishes" list would look like for me.

Well, the last week of 2016 wasn't a particularly busy one in the office, so I started browsing through all my posts during the year to try to narrow down to a "reasonable" list.  I knew it would take a lot of effort to narrow down to just 10 or even 15 dishes, and at the same time leave out a number of memorable experiences, so I decided not to restrict myself to an arbitrary number like that.  Instead, I'd take a hard look and pick out the ones that had the most emotional impact and gave me the most pleasure - not necessarily only the most "fine dining" or "high end" dishes.  Many of these dishes are ones that I'd be happy to eat an enormous quantities of... or ones that I'd be happy to eat day after day.

The following list isn't ranked, and are listed simply by chronological order.

Sliced whelk in consommé (清湯螺片) from Howard's Gourmet (好酒好蔡), Hong Kong - I've never been a fan of whelk, as I could never appreciate this ingredient enough to justify paying the price commanded.  This dish changed how I look at whelk, and was the single most elegant whelk dish I have ever had.

A winter's feast for foodies

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The year end holiday season brings with it lots of visitors from around the world, and among them foodies who come to see what Hong Kong has to offer in the way of dining options.  As I had done last year, I decided to meet up with a group of them - actually two separate groups that we combined together - and arranged a dinner together.  I also invited a couple of local foodie friends in town to join us.

Now, it's rare that we can get such a big group of visitors in town at the same time, so I figured I'd pull out all the stops by letting them experience the very old school, high-end Cantonese cooking at my favorite private dining facility.  Half the visitors are of Chinese (and in fact Cantonese) ancestry, so I figured they'd have some exposure and would have a better appreciation of the dishes.  The other half was coming in from Sweden, and although I had assumed they were well-travelled, I was still a little apprehensive...

Given my limited knowledge about classic Cantonese food, I was very thankful to have had KC with us tonight.  Even though I had been here many times and have had all of the dishes on multiple occasions, there was still a lot of background info that KC would be better placed to deliver to the visitors.

When I received a copy of the menu from the chef about a week ago, I was ecstatic.  It was pretty much a collection of my favorite dishes, and featured two of the most special items in the chef's repertoire...

Crystal king prawn (玻璃大蝦球) - this is so classic that everyone needs to try this at least once... And it's always impressive when a whole plate of these show up on the table.

Late lunch with the boss

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The boss is in town for a surprise visit, and while staying at the Langham Hong Kong, discovered to his surprise that there's a 3-star restaurant in the hotel.  He decided to treat the team to a nice lunch as it's the end of the year.  However, due to the last-minute nature of the booking, we had to wait until 2pm to get seated at T'ang Court (唐閣).

Guess who was tasked with ordering, again?  But this time, the boss kinda skimmed through the Internet and suggested a couple of signature dishes that he had read about...

Steamed shrimp, crab meat and spinach dumplings (菠菜蟹肉餃) - with shrimp, crab, shiitake mushrooms, and spinach.  Very tasty.

The last of the fortysomethings

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It's Christmas Day, and that means one of MNSC's own is celebrating his birthday... and it's a big one this year.  As one of us noted tonight, the eight of us are now finally all in our forties - but only for the next 4 months or so - until the big handle changes for one of us.  So this is a really special time!

Following tradition, the birthday boy hosted dinner at the Hong Kong Club.  The menu is kept pretty simple, and in any case the evening is all about the wines for us.  The better halves were invited to join us this year, and we ended up having separate boys' and girls' tables tonight.

Roasted Australian quail, braised baby roots, pomegranate jus - this was a lot bigger and a lot more plump than I had expected.  Just look at that ass!  You'd think you're staring at Nicki Minaj or Kim K...

A very lobster Christmas

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Continuing with the tradition of cooking at home on Christmas Eve, we ordered another shipment of live wild Atlantic lobsters from Nova Scotia, and our lobster supplier picked them up at the airport in the wee hours this morning.  We met up in Central in the middle of the day and divvied up the critters among a few friends, brought our share of the haul home and put the guys on ice.

As usual, we steamed the lobsters in a pot.  These live and wild lobster are really special.  They've got a wonderful firm texture when biting down, so you know these guys were lively.  Really delicious, and I didn't need any seasoning or sauces whatsoever.